Colton's Dilemma (Shadow Breeds) (9 page)

She breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted her here.  He wanted her to stay….until he said:

“It’s not safe for you to go home until we find out who did this to you.”

She couldn’t hide her disappointment.  She turned her ear back to his chest to try to hide it and whispered, “Oh.”

She felt him shift on the bed.  He flipped her over so that she was underneath him.  He smoothed the hair down on her head as he said, “Tess
.  You’re staying here until we find whoever did this to you and then, after that, well I’m definitely open to suggestions.  But let’s wait to figure that out later, okay?  I don’t want anything to distract me from my duty to protect you and bring your attacker to justice.”

He leaned down to kiss her again but had to stop when there was a knock on the door.  He grinned down at Tess and said, “Hansen’s been pacing outside that door for over an hour.  I should probably let him in.  Plus, you’re hungry, you need to eat.”
“I’m hungry?  I didn’t even know that yet, not really.  How did you?”
“I can hear that your stomach is, ummm, empty.  Why don’t we head downstairs?  We can get you something to eat and then I can talk to Hansen about this wolf and try to find out how it got in. Okay?”

Tess nodded her head.  Colton jumped up, went to the closet and grabbed a bathrobe for Tess.  He tossed it to her on the bed then he grabbed a pair of sweatpants and slid them on.  He walked to the edge of the bed and offered her his hand to help her stand.  She took one look at his chest and said, “You really should put on a shirt, you know.”

“Me?  Why?  I don’t get cold.”

“I know you don’t get cold.  But look at you. How the hell am I supposed to keep my hands off of you when you look like that?”

Colton looked surprised for a moment.  Could he really not know how fucking hot he was, she thought.  Then he surprised her by saying, “Oh.  Don’t.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?  “Don’t?  Don’t what?” she whispered.  Her heart started pounding – she was afraid he was saying ‘
Don’t touch me.’

The twinkle in his eye and the sly, sexy smile told her she was wrong before he even opened his mouth
, “Don’t keep your hands off of me,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she hugged him tight.

“For what?  For letting you touch me?  Believe me, the pleasure’s all mine.  I should be thanking you.”

“No, not that.  Thank you for helping me
to feel good again.  I’ve been lost for years, Colton.  My readings never made any sense; they sent me in a thousand different directions.  None of my spells helped clear up the confusion.  I had no idea what I’ve been searching for, what I’ve been yearning for.  Now I know.  I’ve been searching for you, somehow my inner-self knew you were out here somewhere.  It guided me here – it led me to your woods when I escaped.  Don’t freak out on me – I’m not talking some lifetime commitment or love here.  Hell, we’ve only known each other for less than a week.  But what we shared, what you’ve given me, is peace.  I’m at peace now.  I don’t need anything more from you, I’m content now,” she said as she felt a tear slide out of her eye.  This was a huge emotional release for her.  She knew that he would probably close up emotionally and push her away, but that was okay – or so she tried to tell herself.

He had listened to all of this and tried not to react.  He didn’t want her to think that he was reacting to the wrong parts.  Yes, it was frightening to hear her round-about way of saying that she was in love with him.  He had shut himself off so completely to the emotional world that he wasn’t sure that he was capable of love anymore.  She had shown him otherwise.  And he was surprised at how easy it was, how natural it felt, to love her.  And he did love her, he knew that.  It terrified and thrilled him at the same time.  But that’s not was he was trying to not react to.  It was the other part.  The part about readings and spells.  She was a witch.  That explained a lot.  Actually, it explained everything.  It explained how she was able to pull him to her – even if she didn’t realize that she was doing it.  And it explained why the wolves had chosen her – and he had no doubt that they had targeted her.  A werewolf with magical abilities?  The only thing stronger would be a vampire with magical abilities.  A werewolf-witch would give them powers that he shuddered to think of.  He knew then that he had to tell her everything – even though it would probably trigger her memories of the kidnapping and rape.  He unwrapped his arms from her, turned and sat on the bed, “You’re a witch,” he whispered.

“Yeah, and you’re a vampire.  You got a problem with witches?  What?  Are you a racist vampire?” she said defensively.

He smiled sadly at her, “No, Tess, I’m not a racist vampire and I don’t have a problem with witches.  But I do have a problem with werewolves – at least with werewolves who kidnap witches and try to turn them into super-werewolves.”

He watched her eyes as her brain registered what he had just said.  He watched as recognition flashed in them.  He watched as the terror of the attack
forced itself from her repressed memories and into living, excruciating color.  She screamed, “No!”  Then she turned and crawled to the other side of the bed, trying desperately not to get away from him, but from the memories.  He knew her instinct would be to run, but he also knew that her ankle would prevent her from doing it.  The second both feet hit the floor, she cried out in pain and then fell to the floor on her hands and knees.  He got up and walked around to her.  Her lungs were desperately trying to pull in air, but she was hyper-ventilating.  She was gasping for breath and trying to sob at the same time.  He squatted next to her and reached his hand out to hers.  She swatted his hand away and rasped, “Don’t touch me!”  Then she fell over onto her side and curled up into a ball as the sobs finally broke free.  She sobbed, she wailed actually, but she didn’t protest as he picked her up and cradled her to his chest.  She cried endlessly, her tears raining down his stomach and arms, as the moment of the attack played over and over in her head, like some cruel scene-looped joke.  He knew that nothing he could say right now would help, but he had to try.  “Shhhhh, it’s going to be okay, Tess.   I promise.  I’m going to take care of you.”

Suddenly her head shot up and she slapped him across the face, hard.  His cheek stung and he had tears in his eyes. 
He rubbed his cheek as she started screaming at him.

“You!  You knew that would trigger the memory.  You made me remember, you son of a bitch
.  God damn it, why did you do that?” she hissed.

“I’m sorry, Tess.  I really am.  It’s just that you need to know what’s going on here.  This is huge.  This threatens not only humans but vampires too.  If he had been able to turn you – well, a werewolf/witch would definitely have been a threat to our existence.  But if he had impregnated you when he turned you?  There’s no telling how strong that child’s powers would have been.  A hybrid like that would wreak havoc
on all species’.  And if that hybrid had created more hybrids?  It would probably mean the end of all humans and vampires alike.  Whoever decided to try this has violated just about every law, written and unwritten, that both vampires and werewolves have.  I need to know who this alpha male is because he has to be stopped, and soon, before he tries this again – with you or any other witch out there.”

She climbed out of his lap and hugged her knees to her chin as she sat on the bed, turning her face away from him as she rested her chin on her knee, “That still doesn’t change the fact that you made me remember,” she whispered as she started rocking back and forth, “I don’t want to remember this, Colton.  Do you know what they did to me?  Do you realize how horrible it was?   God, I can smell the musty stink from the room
.  I can feel every pain from what he and the others did to me.  Jesus, Colton,  I can’t handle this. You’re a vampire, can you make my memories go away?  Can you make me forget again?  Please?”

He reached for her but she cringed so he pulled back his hand.  “I can, but it would take away the memories of last night.  It would take away the memories of us.  Do you still want me to do it, Tess?  Do you want to forget the attack and everything that we’ve shared together?”

She turned her head and stared at him, “You’re shitting me, right?  In order to continue feeling for you the way that I’m feeling now, I have to choose to keep remembering the worst thing that’s ever happened to me?  How can I be with you when that image is in my head?  How can I be with anyone?”

“You could tell me what happened, Tess.  Maybe talking about it will help a little?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, “I, I, I can’t talk about it.  It probably would help, but I can’t tell you all the vile and disgusting things that they did to me.”

“You can show me Tess.  You can tell me what happened without saying a word.”

“How can I do that?” she whispered.

“Think about it and let me bite you.  If you’re thinking about something at the moment that I bite you, those memories will flow into me.   It might help lessen the pain, it’ll pass some of it to me.  Let me help you hurt less, please Tess?”

She stared at him for a few moments with the saddest eyes he had ever seen.

She had to think about what he was asking.  On the one hand she knew that talking about what had happened to her would help her to heal.  But did she really want
him
to know what had happened?   Did she really want to share that much of herself with him?  What if he couldn’t look at her the same way again?  What if he thought she was weak?  What if he thought that she had somehow brought this on herself?  What if he didn’t love her anymore?  Love?  What the hell was she thinking?  Did she really think that he loved her?  Already?  “Where do you see this going, Colton?  You, me, us – what do you think the future holds for us?  Or is there even an us in the future?”

He rested his hand on her forearm, pleased that she didn’t shy away from his touch this time, “I hope that there is an us, Tess.  I would like that very much.  Look, I know we haven’t known each other for a very long time, but you’ve got to understand that for a vampire, time is irrelevant.
  We can take weeks, months, years even, to fall in love or it can happen in days,
minutes.
And when we do fall, it is completely, it is totally, it is head over heels, hopelessly in love.  We put a lot of stock in controlling our emotions but when we meet someone who is able to break through that wall, well, there is no halfway with us.  We’re either all in or all out.  And with this, here, with us, I’m definitely all in, Tess.”

“But what if you feel differently after you see it?  What if you don’t want me anymore?” she whispered.

His hand moved to her chin, he gently lifted it and waited until she met his eyes with hers.  “What’s your last name?”

“What?”

“Tess, what is your last name?” he said.

“Hamilton, why?”

“Well, Tess Hamilton, you are the most beautiful, desirable woman that I’ve ever met in my eight hundred and sixty three years on this earth, and nothing, absolutely nothing in your memories will ever change that. I’ve seen the crap that these werewolves can do, so I already had a pretty good idea of what happened to you Tess and I still fell in love with you and I still want you.  In fact, keeping my hands off of you is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face.”

That got a small smile from her
– and that warmed his heart.  She rested her head on her knees and kept eye contact with him, “It’s bad Colton.  It’s ugly, it’s disgusting and it’s bad.  Are you sure you want to see it?”

He nodded, “Absolutely, Tess.  Show me your pain.  Let me take some of it away.”

As she stuck her wrist out to him she said, “Do me a favor?  If this changes how you look at me, how you feel about me, tell me now, okay?  Don’t drag it out, Colton.  I’ll understand if you can’t handle it.  Hell, I can’t handle it.  I won’t blame you and I won’t hate you, just let me walk away now before my heart gets any deeper into this.  Promise me that, please?”

“I promise, Tess.  But the only thing that’s going to change after this is that I’m going to love you even more than I do right now.   Now, as soon as I pierce your skin, think about what happened.  Relive the entire thing in your head.  Don’t hide anything.  Don’t leave anything out.
  I’ll be as gentle as I can, but this will feel a little different because we’re not having sex.  There will be a small sting.”

She nodded
then inhaled sharply as his teeth broke the surface of her skin.  As she felt her blood begin to flow into his mouth, she felt the tears falling from her eyes as she thought back to that night.

Colton tried not to react as the first memory flooded into his brain, but his head jerked as he saw her getting hit on the back of the head as she locked up her store at night.  As she remembered falling to the ground and getting kicked in the ribs, Tess watched, fascinated, as Colton’s body jerked to the side – almost as if he had just been kicked in the ribs too.  His eyes flew open as she remembered coming to as she was being dragged into an abandoned house.  His eyes were black and filled with rage as she remembered the glimpses of carnage and brutality that she saw in the rooms that they passed.  There was blood and body parts everywhere.  He coughed and spit out a little blood across her arm as, in her memory, she saw herself gag at the horrible stench of death that surrounded her.  His free hand flew to his knees as she saw herself being flung onto the hard cement floor on all fours.  He cringed, growled and whimpered as her wrists and ankles were bound by ropes that were attached to metal rings that were embedded in the floor.  He flinched and almost pulled away from her wrist as her pants were undone and roughly pulled down to her knees, leaving her ass exposed to the world.  He whimpered and cried out as the boot came down on her head, pinning it to the floor and the hot poker with the wolf brand was pulled from the fireplace in the corner of the room and pressed into the back of her neck – causing her to scream and cry out. He growled as he heard male voices arguing around her: ‘Don’t touch her, she’s for the alpha male only,’ one voice said, followed by an angry growling voice that said, ‘He won’t be back for a while.  Just look at that ass.  Don’t you just want to grab hold and ride it?’  Colton cringed again as he felt Tess’ fear as a rough hand reached out and caressed her naked behind.  She sank her butt down to try to protect herself from his touch.  The rough hands jerked her hips up, “Keep that ass up or I’ll beat the shit out of you, bitch!”